1. Field
The following description relates to apparatuses to display a 3-dimensional (3D) holographic image based on surface plasmons.
2. Description of Related Art
3-dimensional (3D) image display apparatuses are in demand in various fields, such as medical imaging, games, advertisement, education, the military, and various other industries known to those of ordinary skill in art, based on their capability to represent relatively more realistic and effective images than 2D image display apparatuses. Accordingly, research has been performed to develop a holography or stereoscopy method to implement a 3D image.
The holography method, which is based on the principle of recording an interference signal obtained by overlapping light from a subject with interferential reference light and reproducing the interference signal, is an ideal display method to implement images having a cubic effect. Research into holography has been performed by a number of scientists since holography was proposed by Dennis Gabor, a British scientist, in the 1940s.
Various techniques related to holography have been developed, such as a pulse hologram technique to capture a moving picture, a stereo hologram technique to display a broad area scene and make a broad visual field angle possible, an emboss hologram technique to make mass-production possible, a natural color hologram technique to display natural colors, a digital holography technique based on a digital image pickup device, and an electronic holography technique to display electronic holograms.
Electronic holography, which has been commonly used since 1990, is a field for researching methods that use holography as next-generation image technology. Electronic holography is based on a method of creating a hologram by scanning and transmitting an image captured from an original subject on a pixel basis, sampling and transmitting data included in the hologram, and reproducing the original subject on a display device by restoring the hologram from the data.
Since too much data is included in a hologram for practical sampling and transmission, research is being performed regarding the creation of a hologram by a computer and the subsequent electro-optic display of the hologram. In addition, various hologram systems have been researched to overcome hologram device limitations.